Moving Right Along!

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A beautiful and inquisitive bird joined us for morning tea at Clermont.
Piano up a tree!
Our camp site at Roma, and the stunning bottle tree at sunset, Roma.
When we woke in Roma on Tuesday morning, the temperature was 3.9oC.  Reality  bites! 
The Big Rig Tourist Park at Roma should be called the Big Heart Tourist Park!  I was very impressed with their generosity in providing the best camp kitchen I have used so far on this trip.  Not only was everything a camper could wish for provided in the kitchen but it was also kept spotlessly clean.  
The ablution block wasn't bad either.
The camping area was a bit tight, but we did get the last spot available for the night!

Toowoomba, a place of contrasts.
We had lunch with our friends, who used to live in the Blue Mountains, in Toowoomba.  They took us to the perfect little cafe, The Gourmet Gypsy, for lunch.  Our type of food...it was 'real' food, slow cooked!
They kindly drove us around the town, taking us to all the best spots, saving us a lot of time as we are not familiar with the area.
We have never been to Toowoomba before.  It's in the 'mountains', the air was crisp, the sky cloudless, and the spring flowers already bursting.
The two of us were dressed in summer outfits, I guess our core body temperature is still tuned in to the northern weather and a few locals commented on our attire. 

Lake Dyer at dawn Wednesday morning.
On Tuesday night, it only took us fifty minutes, in the dark, to find the caravan and camp ground at the Lake Dyer which is near Laidley (Lockyer Valley).  And that's using the GPS!!
A second night's camping was available for free, but don't have the time to spend another night. 
We took it easy Wednesday morning (5.6oC), and wandered down to the lake, which was shrouded in mist.  By the time we were ready to leave, it had cleared and a beautiful day was in the making.
I slept most of the way to Ipswich, in fact, I can't tell you a great deal about the scenery since leaving Townsville because I've spent a lot of time sleeping, while Honey Pie's been driving.  I have been feeling very tired.
In Ipswich, we stopped long enough to have lunch and wander through some of the seemingly endless array of opportunity shops.
Wednesday night saw us at Newmarket Gardens Caravan Park, just four kilometre outside Brisbane City.  Here we were greeted with the unexpected helpfulness of friendly staff and a great ablution block.  The camp sites each had a tiled area to set up on. Very civilised indeed.  
Can't believe we've had two great caravan parks in a row.  Finally getting value for money.
We had a bit of time to play with on Wednesday afternoon so made our way up to the shops after setting up the tent.  We found nothing out of the ordinary but at least we had a bit of a walk.
Thursday morning is a little warmer at 12.9oC, and it's not long before we're knocking on our son's front door just two kilometres west of Brisbane's central business district.  Oh no, we woke him up, when he'd only crawled into bed at five in the morning, because of an extra shift at work!
Sorry!